


Slow Burn

by junko



Series: Senbonzakura's Song [38]
Category: Bleach
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-01
Updated: 2014-11-01
Packaged: 2018-02-23 12:50:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,392
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2548109
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/junko/pseuds/junko
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Renji wakes up in the middle of the night with questions....</p>
            </blockquote>





	Slow Burn

Renji must have fallen asleep because he woke in the dark. He’d been dreaming about bitter Inuzuri winters and now he knew why--the embers in the sitting room had gone cold sometime ago and he’d kicked off the covers and was freezing. He had a vague memory of him and Byakuya flinging off the used sheets and replacing them before crashing. Glancing over his shoulder, Renji could see them wedged into the tiny space between the edge of his side of the bed and the wall.

Renji considered trying to wrestle him for a share of the blankets, but Byakuya looked so cute all curled up into a kind of fuzzy cocoon. His hair was a jumble and his nose was tucked up under the lip of a blanket he clutched with his fist.

No way was Renji messing up that.

Too cute.

As quietly as he could, Renji crawled out of the bed. The moonlight was strong enough that he could make out the rooms of the suite fairly well. With minimal blundering he managed to find his ratty cherry blossom yukata and make his way to the irori in the sitting room.

In no time, he had the embers stoked. Wrapping his arms around his legs, Renji sat as close as possible to the warmth and listened to the lonely, midnight sound of the winter wind rattling around the eaves.

It would be Byakuya’s birthday soon. Renji still needed to check in with Hisagi to see if he’d gotten any further on procuring a DJ and sound system. Somewhere on his desk back in the Division, Renji had the contact information for a couple of places that had signs for rooms for rent. He’d have to spend some time tomorrow tracking those down for a suitable space. Otherwise, they’d end up dancing in the street, which would be sexy-as-hell in Renji’s mind, but not really something Byakuya would be likely to appreciate.

Hell, Renji still wasn’t entirely sure this was going to be a very good present. It was far too social and public. But, maybe Renji could sweeten the deal by offering to do whatever kinky thing Byakuya had been researching lately.

Because Byakuya had been amazingly flexible in the bedroom. What the hell even was last night? It was sweet and nothing short of amazing, especially considering how rarely Byakuya wanted to be touched. Renji still couldn’t quite get over it. He still wasn’t sure if he’d ever actually touched Byakuya’s nipples before, ever. It seemed like, given all this time, he should have, but had he?

So, yeah, it was Renji’s turn to give over something big. Gods knew they had a fuck-ton of equipment that they’d never even tried out. It was time to throw open the tansu drawers and say, “Yeah, babe, pick something, anything.”

The humbler had worked out, after all.

And knowing Byakuya, he’d be all, ‘I’ve been reading about this…’ and it’d be some crazy contraption that he’d somehow know how to work perfectly already. Renji swore that Byakuya must spend all his free time reading up on this stuff.

Not that he was complaining… Byakuya’s obsessive research had brought them a long way. All this trusting and negotiations with the kinky stuff must be partly responsible for their recent spate of sweet lovemaking.

That, and Renji figured, Isoroku.

Byakuya must have a heavy conscience about that guy, especially considering… his bent. Given the mistakes Byakuya made during the early parts of their relationship, Renji could only imagine worse for poor Isoroku, who didn’t seem like he could defend himself against a mosquito. Then again, it was hard to know how much of their past problems had to do with Renji’s class. Isoroku might have been treated a bit more like an equal in the bedroom because, well, they were.

It was still the only hesitation Renji had about the threesome.

The class difference could lead to all sorts of trouble, but a big one that suddenly jumped out at Renji was: what if Byakuya really did treat Isoroku gentler, more tenderly? That would break Renji’s heart to see that—to know, for a hard cold fact, that he’d never be touched that way, except when thrown a bone or two, like these last few times.

Yeah, no, then that would make all the nice words into a lie and Renji would have to seriously consider if he could live like that, as second-rate, forever.

“You have your thinking face on. Should I be worried?” Byakuya’s deep voice rumbled from out of the shadows.

Renji glanced up from the glowing embers in time to see Byakuya walk into the room through the opened fusuma panel. Once he reached the sunken fire pit, he sat seiza kitty-corner from Renji.

“You left our bed. Are you all right?” Byakuya asked.

“I got cold.” Then, looking at Byakuya’s concerned face, Renji put a hand on Byakuya’s thigh briefly and chuckled, “Yeah, see how I was trying not to wake you?”

Byakuya’s eyebrows raised and he dryly said, “Perhaps you shouldn’t have thundered about, knocking into everything. I had flashbacks of the night you drunkenly attempted to ‘sneak’ in.”

“Poetry night,” Renji nodded with a smile. “Good times.”

Byakuya agreed. “Indeed.”

Renji stirred the embers with the poker. They sat together, not talking, watching them pop and crackle. The room smelled faintly of wood smoke. Outside, the wind pushed fallen leaves against the eaves, making a shushing, crinkling sound.

“I’ve done something?” Byakuya wondered. “Something that has you upset?”

“What? No,” Renji assured him. “If anything, I’m feeling restless because things have been so good lately.”

“Oh, I see,” Byakuya blinked. After a second, he admitted, “No, that makes no sense to me. Why would that be so?”

“I don’t know,” Renji said, poking the embers. “With us, there’s always something, right? Your aunt, my stupid brother—and, so I guess I not sure what to do when there’s no one to fight.”

Byakuya made a little snort of a laugh. “Oh, Renji. There will always be something. No need to crave an enemy.”

Glancing at Byakuya out the corner of his eye, Renji decided to just lay his fears out. “Yeah, but that’s just it, isn’t it? When we don’t have an enemy in common, the only people left to fight is each other.”

Delicate dark eyebrows pinched together. Byakuya was silent for some time before he glanced up at Renji and said, “I’m not looking for a fight.”

“Me neither,” Renji said.

“Yet you seem to think it is our nature?”

Renji smiled to soften his words, “Well, we do have a bit of a history.”

Byakuya shook his head. Standing up, he turned to the bedroom. “You worry over nothing. Come back to bed.”

Renji thought about it for a second, but then put down the poker. Byakuya was right, no need to stir up trouble they didn’t have yet. “Sounds good to me.”

Byakuya found an extra comforter for the bed and they did a little more tidying up before snuggling back in. Renji slipped out of his yukata and folded it over the edge of the bed. Once they were both in bed, there was a tense moment where Byakuya almost looked as though he might offer to hug Renji. His arms patted at Renji awkwardly, and then his eyes went wide with the ‘Nope!’ With a helpless little blink, Byakuya turned his back, lying on his side.

Renji thought it was still a kind of invitation, so he asked, “You’re saying I can spoon up, right?”

Clearing his throat, Byakuya conceded, “Yes, for a little while. Until you get hot.”

“You’re too good to me, babe,” Renji chuckled. Scooting up, he tucked up close against Byakuya’s back, his legs curling up under Byakuya’s backside. He flung one arm loosely around Byakuya’s waist and let out a long, happy sigh.

Despite the earlier awkward, Renji could feel Byakuya relaxing. An arm dropped down to curl around Renji’s forearm comfortingly. With the familiar smells and sensations surrounding him, Renji was asleep in less than a minute.

#

When Renji next awoke the sun was bright and a note was stuck to his forehead. Peeling it off his face, he blinked at it stupidly for a moment until his eyes finally woke up. Then, he read in Byakuya’s neat, but hurried script:

> Love,
> 
> My cousin Hirako has arrived unexpectedly (and at a ridiculously annoying pre-tea hour). For some reason, Eishirō feels I need to be present. I will disengage myself as soon as possible, but perhaps it is best if, rather than waste your morning waiting on me, we meet for lunch in my office again.
> 
> I wish I were still in bed with you, cuddled up. How cold it was to leave your arms!
> 
> Alas, I must go.
> 
> Yours.

 

There at the bottom was one of Byakuya’s crazy attempts at art. Renji turned the paper around several times before he determined that it was maybe lips, kissing? Or a heart? He really wasn’t sure, but he kind of adored how alternately sweet and annoyed the note was, so he folded it up and set it aside to take with him.

Eishirō must have felt guilty, too, because on Byakuya’s side of the bed was a small covered tray with another note that simply bore Renji’s name. Lifting it up, it revealed a bowl of steaming rice topped with fish flakes and green tea. Ah, a favorite comfort food! Renji was pretty sure it was meant as some kind of pay off for not waking him, because Miki had also included Renji’s favorite pickles: kyurizuke, cucumbers brined in soy sauce, salt, and sugar. A small pot of tea had been steeping for gods only knew how long, but Renji wasn’t complaining. He put the tray on his lap and ate it all up while still in bed.

In the washroom, Renji poured the pitcher that was usually reserved for hand washing over his head to wash out his hair, before tying it back in its usual topknot. Somewhere along the line he’d misplaced his bandana, so he went without for the moment. After scrubbing his face and trimming his sideburns, he was dressed and ready to head out.

He paused at the door.

He could go down through the kitchens, but Renji could already tell it was a busier than average day at the estate. Besides, he kind of wanted to stop by the inn across from the Division and see if Captain Ukitake had come to collect his errant partner yet. So, he turned around. Sliding aside the door to the balcony, Renji leaped up onto the banister and used a burst of reiatsu-fueled shunpo to make the distance to the wall.

The guards must have felt his approach because rather than draw on him, they snapped to attention. He waved them into ‘at ease,’ and asked; “Any chance someone kept an eye on the izakaya last night?”

The two patrols exchanged nervous glances. These were Byakuya’s household guards, so Renji had no idea of their names. One of them, the younger one with a kind of longish bowl cut that hung in his eyes, said: “Were we supposed to?”

Renji shook his head. “Not really. Your boss told you to be on the look out for shinigami strange to you, though, right?”

“Yes, sir!”

Renji nodded and turned toward the front part of the division’s wall where he hoped his own people had a better sense of what might have happened last night, and whether or not Kyōraku had snuck out or might still be sleeping it off.

But, at the front, he didn’t get much helpful news either. Kinjo was on the door and he explained, “I didn’t see anyone, but we can really only watch the front of the place. Pretty sure the captain is smart enough to sneak out around the back.”

Renji agreed with a grunt.

After getting a basic report on how the evening shift had gone, Renji took the steps down from the walled parapet and wandered across to the izakaya. One of the landlady’s kids was sweeping the stoop in that half-hearted way teenagers everywhere had. He stopped to nod at Renji, a jealous eye lingering on Zabimaru. As Renji nodded back, he sympathized. It must be hard for anyone with ambition to be right across from a Division, knowing you couldn’t be a Gotei soldier unless you could qualify for Academy. And a kid his age? He’d know by now. Still, Renji wanted to say, there were other options—especially given the estate right next door. Plenty of nobles needed strong sword arms to defend their castles, as it were.

Still, not as appealing as the life of the Gotei soldier—fighting Hollows and Arrancar and such. At that thought, Renji wanted to add, ‘yeah, looks cool from the outside, but it’s not all it’s cracked up to be, kid.’ But, he let it go and walked into the tavern.

When the door opened, the landlady looked up from where she was wiping down tabletops. Setting down her rag, she stood up.

“We still have a guest of the Sixth’s upstairs?” Renji asked her.

She looked surprised at the question. “Unless one of them snuck off, you’ve got two. That captain and then one of yours, who checked in sometime after two, drunk as a skunk.”

Well, that was what they paid her for. He nodded. “You got a breakfast special or something?” When she nodded, Renji added, “Make me a big one and I’ll take it up to that captain.”

#

A tray in his hand, Renji listened at the door to the room they’d rented for Kyōraku. He thought he heard someone shuffling around, but he wasn’t sure.

_Zabimaru? Can you sense Katen Kyōkotsu?_

_They are there_ , the snake tail hissed.

Renji used his shoulder to slide the door open as he said, “Shitsurei shimasu!” and then stood there, his mouth open, because Captain Kyōraku was in nothing but his shitagi and… so… much… hair.

Thick hair sprouted on Kyouraku’s legs and arms and the shitagi was open enough to show a thick mat on his chest. Also, somehow his hair had come unbound and there was a gigantic wave of curls that flowed over his shoulders. The curls bounced and flounced and flowed as he moved around the small room, tossing things aside in a seeming panic.

Seeing Renji, Kyōraku stopped his frantic pacing. “Oh, Mr. Renji, thank goodness! Put that tray down and help me find my hairpin. Somehow it’s gone missing.”

“Oh, uh, right,” Renji said, finding a spot to set the tray and shutting the door behind him. He went over to the futon and started undoing the sheets and Kyōraku crowded closely to watch. “You had it last night when we brought you up here. It’s in this room somewhere.”

After all, this wasn’t the Rukongai. Only a suicidal idiot would steal something so recognizable off a beloved captain inside the Seireitei with thousands of Gotei soldiers breathing down their neck. Besides, part of what the Division paid for was for the landlady to keep an eye out for anyone who might roll a drunk.

“It’s the only heirloom I consent to wear,” Kyōraku said gravely, wringing his hands. “More than that, it’s only thing of value I’ve ever agreed to take from my family. If it’s gone, they’ll destroy me.”

“We’ll find it, sir,” Renji said, handing Kyōraku a sheet to shake out.

By the time Renji had gotten everything nearly stripped to the buckwheat hull filling they heard a telltale jingle and thunk. Picking the hairpin up, Renji handed it to the captain. Kyōraku’s relief was so dramatic, he collapsed to the floor clutching the itto his heart. “Ho, ho! You’re a lifesaver, Mr. Renji!”

“You’d have found it, if you weren’t so worried about it, Taicho,” Renji said. He started folding the nearest sheet and tried not to stare at Kyōraku with his hair everywhere and the shitagi gaping wide open.

“And not quite so hung-over,” Kyōraku chuckled.

Renji smiled. “There is that.”

As Renji continued to fold up sheets, Kyōraku pulled his legs in to sit tailor fashion and began wrestling his curls into his typical ponytail. Renji could feel Kyōraku’s eyes following him, curious.

Whatever Kyōraku might be wondering about him, Renji had questions of his own: where was Nanao? Normally, she never left her captain’s side--never let him get into trouble. If not her, where were all the frantic butterflies that would be surrounding Byakuya if he randomly went AWOL one night? What about Ukitake? Why wasn’t he here, clucking and fussing over his partner?

After a while, Kyōraku stood up and picked up the tray Renji’d delivered. “And you brought me breakfast,” he said, after inspecting it. “You realize, do you not, that I deserve none of your kindness?”

Renji had run out of bedding to fuss with, so he sat down on the edge of the futon. “Yeah, I know. Except you didn’t hurt anyone, did you? So you must not have wanted to.”

Kyōraku’s sharp grey eyes seemed to penetrate deep into Renji’s soul and held him there for a beat. Then, all of a sudden, Kyōraku laughed, “You’re an unusual man, Mr. Renji. You remind me of your dear friend, Mr. Ichigo. Both of you are far too trusting.”

What started out sounding like a compliment had become an insult.

Renji’s first instinct was to protest and say, ‘hey, at least Ichigo and I figured out Aizen while the rest of you all sat on your hands,’ but instead, he shrugged it off. Wasn’t like he’d really had Aizen’s plans sussed, he just knew he couldn’t let Rukia die. With a lift of his shoulder, Renji said, “Eh, ain’t me you got to worry about, anyway. It wasn’t my shit you went after.”

“Ho, ho? I don’t believe Mr. Daisuke belongs to anyone but himself.”

“I’m pretty sure that’s not how my captain would see it. The Sixth laid claim the moment we spilled blood for him.”

“Your blood,” Kyōraku noted with a smile. He’d sat back down on the scuffed and worn tatami and was pouring himself tea, like they were having a pleasant little chat over breakfast. “By that logic, doesn’t that make him yours?”

Renji scowled. “You know it doesn’t. I fetched him on captain’s orders.”

“Is that so?” Kyōraku’s voice was like a deep, amused purr. “You brought back exactly what you were commanded to get, did you?”

Ah, crap, Renji should’ve figured that Kyōraku knew all about Seichi and how everything that had happened at the Eleventh was kind of a fortuitous fuck-up. Well, then, Renji had no other option but the truth. And, if that was the case, might as well go in swinging: “Yeah, no, I didn’t. I was meant to get my stupid ass brother, but when I found Daisuke there, I couldn’t leave him like that. I got no stomach for that kind of abuse. I guess you have no problem with that shit, though, huh?”

“Ah, touché,” Kyōraku chuckled. “Though, perhaps I only meant to do the same last night?”

Renji let out his own dark chuckle now, “Yeah, that argument would work a hell of a lot better if you hadn’t already told me you’d planned to carve his tongue out.”

“Oh? I said that out loud, did I? My, my, I was much drunker than I thought I was,” he smiled, taking a sip. With another happy laugh, Kyōraku cracked an egg over his rice and announced, “Well, well! I see I’ve been outplayed! You’re a surprisingly formidable opponent, Mr. Renji.”

Renji felt a cold fear settle slowly into his belly.

Kyōraku had given up far too easily. Renji shot to his feet. Breakfast time… oh shit, they’d told the bodyguards to be on the look out, but not the servants. Anyone could sneak into the estate with a delivery. Especially right now with all the family around and half the servants not knowing who worked for whom, so long as they were dressed in Kuchiki blue, the bodyguards wouldn’t stop anyone either—

Renji ran out the door to the sound of Kyōraku’s laughter.

**Author's Note:**

> More coming ASAP, I promise!
> 
> And the usual thanks go to Josey (cestus) who did her usual amazing typo-spotting and plot-crunching with me.


End file.
